Chapter 1
Peter walked into the kitchen to find Aunt Carol sitting on the island with Aunt Val standing in between her legs. Valkyrie was smiling brightly at her, obviously flirting shamelessly with her girlfriend. Carol leaned down and kissed Val to shut her up. Peter also noticed that Steve was standing by the toaster, waiting for something to pop up while Bucky hugged him from behind and kissed the back of his neck.
"Wow, gross, I can't even walk into my own kitchen without seeing these gross displays of public affection," Peter broke the happy couples blissful quietness as he made a fake gagging noise.
Steve jumped a little when his bagel popped up out of the toaster, he put it on a plate and turned to leave the kitchen. Peter grabbed the bagel from him before he could, ignoring Steve’s complaint, and moved to grab jam out of the huge, well stocked fridge.
"Hey, Aunt Carol," he said after taking a bite of his bagel, “don’t forget, it’s your day to take me to school.”
"Of course Peter, I would never forget. I love driving you to school. What is it you and Shuri say? I like to flex on all of those bitches," Carol replied with a bright smile Peter laughed, not fully sure if she was completely serious or not. Steve sighed from where he was by the pantry where he was grabbing another bagel. Peter heard him murmur 'Why do I even try', prompting a chuckle from Bucky who was still standing at his side.
Peter stepped out of Carol's cherry red old fashioned Mustang, not necessarily enjoying, but also not hating the jealous stares that he got from the other kids around the front of the school.
He turned back to Carol who was about to crank up some old, terrible 90's song, "Bye Aunt Carol, I'll see you tonight, love you."
"Bye Peter Parker, I love you too." She said it in her nice perky voice, the one that she only ever used when she was jokingly talking to him.
Peter walked up towards the school, meeting up with Ned and MJ before they walked into the school.
"Which of the weird family members drives the Mustang?” Ned asked as they stepped into the school, which was about five degrees colder than it was outside.
"Oh, ya know, my cool lesbian space aunt that can fly through spaceships," he said casually. Ned got the look of childish wonder he sometimes got around the Avengers in his eyes for a moment.
Ned was very quickly brought back to reality when MJ said, “I’m very genuinely surprised that you know what a Mustang looks like.”
“I’ll have you know that I have built several of the Classic Cars Lego sets, including a 1980 Mustang which looks very similar to Ms. Captain Marvel’s car,” Ned replied.
MJ rolled her eyes and went back to looking at the book she was reading.
"Rude," Ned murmured good-heartedly at her.
Mercifully, the day went by quickly. He spent his time avoiding Flash, trying and failing to get homework done before he actually had to take it home, and inevitably inviting Ned and MJ over to hang out after school. Tony never really cared when Ned and MJ came over, even if he pretended to be annoyed by their almost constant presence. MJ had originally told him that she wasn’t interested, but Peter had enticed her into hanging out with the promise of Shuri also being invited. MJ and Shuri already spent a lot of time together, but anytime MJ could hang out with her girlfriend it was a good time.
Despite how much Peter was happy for his friends and their relationships, he couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. He was in a great relationship with one Harley Keener, but since Harley lived in hoe-dunk Tennessee, Peter had a hard time hanging out with his boyfriend of almost a year in real life. They had been dating since last year when Harley had come to spend the summer interning at the tower. Tony had really wanted to see him again after he almost died. The two had spent a lot of time working in the labs with Tony, and together without Tony. About halfway through the summer, they had kissed. That prompted them to confess their feelings, have a very awkward first date, and for Peter to be in the most serious relationship of his life. All Peter wanted in life was to see Harley in person again. The last time they had seen each other was about five months ago when Tony had flown him out to be Peter's date to Steve and Bucky's wedding. They talked every day, but it just wasn’t the same. Peter knew what cuddling Harley-what kissing Harley was like.
Peter sent Harley a text about how much he missed him.
Harley sent him a picture of him doing a pouty lip with his best friend giving him a thumbs up next to him. Then he sent him a text saying that he loved and missed him too.
Peter felt a little better.
At the end of the day, Bucky picked him, MJ, and Ned up in his plain, slightly dinky old black car. Most Avengers had nice cars, courtesy of Tony, but Bucky insisted on his car that he claimed was only from 2011 but was probably even older.
"Hello Mr. Barnes-Rogers," MJ said, she may not have liked most adults, but for some reason, she really respected Bucky.
"Yeah, what's up, Uncle Buck," Bucky just smiled at them as they piled in, MJ in the passenger seat, Ned and Peter in the back.
As they crawled through New York traffic, MJ and Bucky talked animatedly about their days, something that Peter tuned out in favor of the new Ironman lego set that Ned had recently gotten that they were going to build together over the weekend.
When they got there, they saw that a sleek black supersonic jet was already resting on the roof, signifying that Shuri was already there.
Peter led the way, scanning his ID card to let everyone in, as Bucky and MJ were still talking, now about the internal and external homophobia that Bucky had faced in the '30s.
Peter figured that that was why they got along so well, they could talk about anything. And they agreed on almost everything. Bucky was probably the person that MJ respected the most, other than her single mom that sacrificed everything for her. MJ also really respected her mother.
They were so focused on their conversation that they barely noticed Shuri. She was standing at the kitchen counter, small tools and tiny screws spread out across the granite in a way that would have Happy calling a house meeting about tinkering in the kitchen if he saw it.
Peter and Ned walked up to her, each giving her a hug before she turned to glare at her girlfriend and good friend still ignoring her for their conversation.
"...Anyway, that's why I would have liked to be able to do meth in the '60s..." MJ said.
“I would have also liked to do meth in the 60’s. And not that I’m encouraging it, but I do think that Stark could get you high quality meth that wouldn’t kill you.”
“Mr. Barnes-Rogers, are you suggesting that I get addicted to drugs, then I would just be another statistic in the high-school to prison industrial complex.” She replied in
her perfected monotone.
Bucky also turned serious in that moment to mirror MJ. “Michelle, I would never. If you got sent to prison I would just break you out. See the guards try to stop me,” he said completely earnestly.
MJ broke out into a wide smile, “then we would both be in jail.”
Bucky grinned back at her before pointing over MJ’s shoulder. She turned to see Shuri standing there, tapping her toe impatiently as she waited for them to be done talking.
Her face lit up like the sun when she saw her girlfriend, rushing over to her, hugging for a second before kissing each other gently.
They were still wrapped in a gross hug a minute later, "Okay you two, break it up, I'm sick of your gross PDA," Peter interrupted, still thinking about Harley.
MJ turned to him while Shuri walked over to greet Bucky. "We get it, Peter, you're bitter because you miss your poor little Harley, didn't you facetime him last night?"
"Well, yeah, but you know that it’s not the same. Besides, I'm surrounded by grossly adorable couples all day long. I haven't even touched Harley in five months," Peter was a bit indignant. He looked over at Bucky and Shuri, they had hugged and now Shuri was making fun of Bucky, using both vine references and internet language that Bucky only learned so he could talk to Shuri.
Once Shuri wandered back over to them, they all went up to the lab that Tony had built just for Peter after he had moved in a little over a year ago.
They spread out through the lab.
Shuri was working on the stitches substitute that she had been working on. The goal was to bind human flesh together in almost no time leaving almost no scars. At the moment, she had been using synthetic flesh and had only gotten to closing in an hour with a pretty nasty raised scar.
MJ sat on a stool next to Shuri, giving her constructive input every once in a while as she continued reading a book that Peter still didn't know the name of.
Ned and Peter were on the other side of the lab doing their physics homework. They were talking the whole time, about both the homework and other things. They had never needed to be silent when doing their homework. That was why they were on the other side of the lab. Shuri claimed she couldn’t focus with the sound of their impish voices.
"Hey, have you heard that rumor that we're going on a field trip to this exact tower in two weeks. I don't know if it's true, but I figured it would interest you," Ned said, looking up from his homework and smiling evilly. It probably wasn’t actually evil, but Peter couldn’t think of anything else to describe thinking this topic was funny.
Peter almost glared at him, "I actually can’t think of anything worse. Some of the people that I hate the most in the world, coming to my literal house is the worst kind of hell I can imagine. I'll have to ask Tony about it, maybe convince him not to actually let it happen," Peter said. If that ever did happen, Peter would probably just kill himself, the mortification of his classmates entering his house would probably kill him anyway.
Later that night, Peter walked into Tony's lab and saw him tinkering with a glove, he was probably making something for Clint. They had been working on gloves that would always make things fly straight and accurately even when shot while Clint was moving.
"Hey dad," Peter said, plopping himself on a stool next to Tony and grabbing something from the desk to examine.
"Hi Pete, how was school?" Tony asked, putting the glove down and giving Peter his full attention like he always did. Peter followed suit after a moment. The gadget he had picked up wasn’t that interesting anyways.
"It was good, I spent some time with Shuri and the rest of them-”
“Of course, the three people who don’t live here that spend more time here than I do,” Tony cut in with a grin.
Peter rolled his eyes, blushing a bit when Tony sent him a look that said ‘oh really?’
“Dad, that’s not the point. Ned told me that he heard a rumor about you inviting my class to come here on a field trip. Is it true?”
"Maybe…”
“Come on, dad,” Peter cut his pandering off.
“Really kid, I have no idea, I usually let Ava or Cassie handle it, so I guess take it up with
them if you want to stop it," Peter glared at him for a moment, and Tony grinned back at him. "But I'm sure that everyone else would love to meet your class, kiddo."
"Yeah, but it sounds a bit like hell to me, so...no thank you?" His fake puzzled tone made Tony smile again and pat him on the shoulder.
"Okay, I'll see if I can talk to them about it, now, are you gonna stay down here with me? Or are you gonna go?" Tony went to turn back to the glove and Peter decided that he wasn't really feeling working in the lab tonight. He hugged Tony tightly, Tony hugging him back just as tightly, and said goodnight.
"Alright Pete, goodnight to you too, I love you."
"I love you too, dad," Peter called, stepping into the elevator and swiping the card, choosing the floor that held everyone's bedrooms. There were two residential levels of StarkTower. One was for the living room, dining room, kitchen, training gym, and library. The other held the bedrooms of everyone that lived in the tower plus enough guest rooms for everyone that routinely stopped by the tower.
He entered his room and looked around at the walls. They were covered in lego posters, spider-man merch, and spirit stuff from Midfield. Against one wall was his full-sized bed with a light blue and gray bedspread. Against the opposite wall was a cluttered desk, it had papers, Peter's laptop, and half finished gadgets. Above the desk, Peter also had two shelves with a variety of books, trinkets, and built Lego sets.
Peter loved his room. A huge window took up the outside wall, it was currently covered in large dark blue curtains. Peter may have really liked the color red, but it was just too aggressive to decorate a room with, blue was a much calmer color.
Plus, Peter had a full on walk in closet and his own bathroom through the white door on the bedside wall. His room wasn't as big as Tony's, but it was amazing compared to the old tiny apartment room Peter used to have.
After Peter got into bed, he decided to FaceTime Harley.
The phone rang three times before he picked up. Peter's heart leapt at the sight of his gorgeous boyfriend. His soft golden hair was messy in a way that was so Harley, and his sharp collar bones were on display with the loose collared t-shirt he was wearing.
"Hey baby," Harley said in a slightly tired, raspy voice.
"Hi, how are you? How was your day? Are you getting enough sleep? Are your classes going well?" Peter always wanted to know everything going on in his life when they talked, even though they talked almost every day, over text or facetime.
Maybe someone else would have been annoyed, but Harley never really was. He just chuckled softly and did his best to answer all of the questions. "Chill baby spider, I'm doing really good. I went to therapy after school today, and they have me on a new medication that's supposed to reduce the mood swings the other one was giving me. And I missed you a fucking lot," Harley readjusted the phone, resting his chin on his hand. "but other than that, I'm doing good. Getting a solid four hours of sleep a night. And classes are going great. Except for Goddamn English, that class will be the death of me. Try as I might, I just don't get it." Harley sighed.
Peter was glad that he was getting four hours because Harley struggled so badly with depression and insomnia. He had for three years now. The way Harley describes it is that one day he just freaked out. He tried to kill himself, went to the ER and everything. But now, he was better. He still went to therapy twice a month, and he was on melatonin for his insomnia, and two other medications for his depression. He may have been doing fine now, but Peter couldn't help but worry that he would snap again and hurt himself. It would absolutely destroy Tony, him, his sister, Aria, and his angel of a mother, Katie.
"That's really good, baby. I'm glad that you've been sleeping more lately, I'm assuming the melatonin is working?" Harley nodded and Peter hoped he wasn't as easy a book to read as he thought he was because then he would easily be able to see how in love Peter was with him. "Have you finished your English homework yet?"
Harley replied the negatory and they worked on it together. It was fairly simple, just writing sentences out of sentence fragments with certain words in it. It may not have been hard to Peter, but Harley, the genius who had helped Ironman out at the age of eleven, looked at it like it was harder than rocket science, to be fair, Harley understood rocket science.
About half-way through the homework, Aunt May came in to Peter’s room to say goodnight.
“OMG is that Aunt May,” Harley called excitedly. “Peter, move the phone so that I can see her,” he demanded.
Peter giggled and complied, showing a waving Harley to a waving Aunt May.
“Aunt May, you absolute angel, how the hell are ya?” He asked.
May moved over and sat down on the bed so that she could talk, she ignored the dramatic eye roll that Peter sent her. “Harley, darling, I’m doing wonderful. How are you, kid?”
“Never been better, May. Even better because I’m seeing you.”
Peter turned the phone back to him, away from his blushing aunt. “Harley, we’ve talked about this, no flirting with my aunt,” he said, cheeks a flame.
“What, babe, that’s not flirting, that’s just appreciating an amazing woman, it’s clear you don’t appreciate her enough,” he said indignantly. He smiled like he had won gold at the Olympics when he heard Aunt May giggle.
“Alright boys, good night. Don’t stay up too late, Peter. I love you both,” she said as she stood and walked to the door.
“Good night, May,” Peter and Harley said at the same time, prompting more giggling from the older woman as she softly clicked the door closed.
About two hours later, Harley's English homework was finally done and his melatonin was starting to kick in.
"Okay, Harles, I love you, good night, " Peter said as Harley yawned loudly.
"I love you too darling, good night. Ohh, and tell the old man that he ain’t shit and I need more money for my projects." Classic fucking Harley.
“Tell him yourself, you have his number, stop being such a dork,” Peter replied, laughing into the darkness as he drank in all the little details that he had already memorized last summer.
“Say’s the biggest fucking dork in all of New York, I love you, but Peter, you are a nerd,” Harley replied, blowing Peter an overdramatic kiss before hanging up.
It was undeniable, Peter wanted to spend the rest of his life with that bitch.